The SS began as Hitler’s personal
body guard during the party “Time of Struggle.” After 1929,
Heinrich Himmler took leadership , and the SS began to feature itself
as an elite corps. Its members were to fit the model of an ideal “Aryan.” Support
for the SS came from the aristrocracy and professional classes, including
physicians. Himmler organized the corps along the lines of the Jesuits:
absolute obedience was sworn to Hitler.
Two months after the Night of Long Knives (June 30, 1934), the SS became
independent of the SA and absorbed the Gestapo. By the late 1930s, the
SS assumed control over all police forces in the state. The twelve departments
of the SS duplicated the twelve departments of the state. One after another
of the state agencies became absorbed within the SS, which conducted
arbitrary arrests and imprisonment of suspects and administered the system
of concentration camps. When the war broke out in September 1939, the
SS was in control of the transfer of populations.
Heinrich Himmler, who joined the Nazi Party and SA in the “Time
of Struggle,” took part in the Beer Hall Putsch and SA actions
during political campaigns. He joined the SS in 1925; in 1929, he ascended
to leadership of the SS. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933, Himmler
enhanced the power of the SS, especially after the Roehm Purge (June
30, 1934). By 1936, Himmler had accumulated enormous power in control
of the entire police force of the Third Reich: he was the Reichsfuhrer
of the SS and Head of the German Police.
During the war, Himmler’s powers further increased. In addition
to his control of all police forces, he was placed in charge of the operation
to make Europe “Judenrein” (free of Jews).
Himmler’s desire to purify the Aryan race led to the creation
of Lebensborn, homes for women to mate with SS men to produce Aryan children.
Himmler also laid out specifications for the marriages of SS men. As
the Reich grew, incorporating territories outside the Reich, Himmler
aspired to create a European order of Knighthood that owed its total
allegiance to Adolf Hitler. His ultimate aim was to create “an
order of good blood to serve Germany.” |
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